Sonny Gray snags line drive, saves himself from dental damage
In recent years we’ve seen far too many pitchers on the business end of vicious line drives.
Brandon McCarthy, now of the Los Angeles Dodgers, always comes to mind first because of the serious damage he sustained. McCarthy suffered a skull fracture, brain contusion and epidural hemorrhage and continued dealing with the after effects for close to a year.
It’s happened to others as well. In 2011, Juan Nicasio was struck by a liner and suffered a C-1 vertebrae fracture on the fall. Most recently, Archie Bradley of the Arizona Diamondbacks was lucky to sustain only minor sinus damage on a Carlos Gonzalez liner.
It’s a scary reality of the game that people are trying to address, but are being met with reluctance from the very people they’re attempting to protect.
It’s also a scary reality that nearly reared its ugly again on Friday, as Oakland A’s ace Sonny Gray was inches away from catching a Matt Joyce line drive in the chops.
The ball was absolutely smoked and looked like a blur as it traveled some 60 feet into Gray’s domain. Gray, who falls off to the left side of the mound after his pitches, moved right into the ball’s track. With a split-second reaction, however, he was able to snatch the baseball and save himself from something unpleasant.
He was laughing on the outside, but only the A’s equipment manager knows how frightened Gray actually was as that baseball zoomed in.
He’s a very lucky that he only had to dust himself off after that one.
As for the baseball side of things, Gray actually ran into some bad luck later as the Angels rallied from five runs down to win 12-7. Gray was charged with six run (five earned) including four runs in an eight-run seventh inning rally.
It was only the second time in 12 starts this season that Gray had allowed more than two earned runs. It’s the first time he’s allowed four or more runs since Sept. 2 of last year, a stretch spanning 19 outings.
On the plus side, his ERA is still a league-best at 1.95. That’s a good thing. As is the fact Gray will be able to walk to the mound again in five days.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
